by Beverly Bird
It gave her an ache that she couldn’t quite understand. It was so... homey. Though she had promised herself she wasn’t going to think too much about anything, her thoughts wandered to what would be going on at her parents’ home up in Chestnut Hill right about now.
The caterers would be rushing around. Her mother, Isobel, would be overseeing things—the florist, the musicians, all the last-minute details. Her father would still be upstairs with his brandy, dawdling just enough to make her mother fret. And her brother, Jesse, would arrive at any moment, early enough to kill two birds with one stone. He would stay at the party just long enough that it could be said he’d attended, and he’d arrive well in advance so it could be said that he’d paid a family visit as well.
Tessa realized suddenly that she hadn’t called any of them to let them know she wouldn’t be coming tonight. As soon as things calmed down, she thought, she’d have to ask Gunner if she could use the phone.
“John!” Voices rang out, and Tessa’s thoughts jolted back from Chestnut Hill to South Philly. She finally looked around at the crowd, and then she saw Angela Byerly.
“Be right back, Tess,” Gunner called. He deposited the little girl he’d been carrying back on her feet. “I’m going to run upstairs and grab a shower.”
Tessa’s eyes remained on Angela, and something inside her shrank. What was she doing here? Gunner had said no dates! He’d said it at the office, and again outside.
Someone pushed a glass of punch at her. She took it and drank deeply, grateful to have something to do with her hands.
“I’m Antoinette Gunner,” the woman who handed her the drink introduced herself.
“Thank you,” she said, holding up the punch. Then a little thump of surprise hit her in the chest. “Gunner?”
The woman gave a halfway sort of grin. In that moment, there was no doubting the blood relationship between her and John.
“I’m his mother.” Antoinette sighed. “I tried teaching him manners. I really did. But I think maybe you’ll be better off if you just circulate and take care of introducing yourself. We tend to be an informal bunch around here.”
The woman moved off again. She had the muscled, agile grace of a dancer. Her hair was black rain, spilling to her waist in a ponytail. Huge gold hoops swung from her ears. Traces of silver shocked her temples.
“She’s a gypsy.”
Tessa jumped and looked at Angela Byerly. The medical examiner had come to stand against the wall beside her. It took everything she had not to blurt, “What are you doing here?”
“I beg your pardon?” Tessa asked instead, startled.
“Antoinette. Although actually, everyone just calls her Tonie. She’s second-generation Hungarian. She worked with the circus for years. High-wire and trapeze.”
“Wow.” Tessa realized she was more impressed than she would have been with any high-profile politico she might have met at her parents’ party.
She sipped more of the punch. It was delicious. It tasted like cherries, but not quite. There was something almost nutty in there, too, but she couldn’t quite place it. It had a very gentle bite.
“I want to thank you for your help with the Benami thing,” she said cautiously, not sure if she should mention it but inbred manners won out.
Angela looked genuinely surprised. “Help? Oh, that.” She laughed again. “I owed John a big one. Maybe now we’re even.”
Tessa wondered what classified as a “big one.” She was dying to know, and too polite to ask.
“A bunch of years ago, I had a problem with...with this guy,” Angela explained without prompting. “John dissuaded him for me.”
“Dissuaded him,” Tessa repeated.
“He laid in wait for him in my bushes one night. Charlie—that was his name—came by to harass me again. I don’t know what happened exactly, and I honestly don’t want to know. I saw Charlie once right after that, and he had a broken arm. He never bothered me again.”
“I see,” Tessa said. She shivered a little, remembering what he had nearly done to Benami. “I might not know Mr. Dresden from Mr. Uniroyal, but I know right from wrong. And I’ll be damned if I’m going to stand around with my hands in my pockets while somebody hurts a woman I like...”
“You’re good friends,” Tessa observed carefully after a moment.
“We grew up together. Excuse me.” And then Angela was gone again, Tessa got the feeling that she’d realized she’d said more than she’d intended to.
Tessa went to refill her punch glass and felt Gunner behind her before she saw him. She sensed the warmth of him first, then she caught a whiff of a forest at dawn. His hand came down on her shoulder, hard, strong, but oddly gentle. He rubbed his thumb briefly over her collarbone.
Something silvery and quick seemed to scoot through her.
“You doing all right?” he asked quietly.
“Yes.” Her voice was too breathy, she realized. Someday, someday soon, she was really going to have to decide how she felt about this man.
She turned around and he scowled at the glass she held. “How much of that have you had?” he asked.
“It’s my second glass. Why?”
“You said you didn’t drink.”
“There’s liquor in this?” She honestly couldn’t taste it.
“Sure there is.” About seven different kinds, he thought, if his memory served him correctly. He took the glass from her hand and set it down on the table. “Come on, let’s go.”
“Where?”
“We’ll cruise the neighborhood. That’s what this is all about.”
He led the way through the crowd to the front door again. Tessa started after him, then she felt someone tug on her elbow. It was Tonie Gunner. She pushed a large thermos into Tessa’s hands.
“Here, you’ll need this.”
“I will?”
“Now don’t let them drink all of it, you hear? Tell them it’s yours and to get their butts on down to my house if they want more.”
“Oh. Okay. Sure.” Tessa tucked the thermos under her arm.
She finally caught up with Gunner again on the street. He was waiting for her.
They turned north and started walking. She noticed that he kept his hands thrust deeply into his jacket pockets. He also kept a good foot of space between them.
She wondered what it said about his Don Juan reputation that he was spending one of the most romantic nights of the year alone. It could mean anything, she realized. It could mean that his reputation was inaccurate, she thought with a startled thump of her heart. Or it could mean that every other night of his year was so crammed with female companionship, it was a relief and a refreshing change of pace for him to go solo once in a while.
Probably the latter.
What was it he had said that first day when they had been talking about love? Maybe I’m just not capable of it. “Maybe love’s just too confined, too stringent for my tastes.” Certainly if there was a steady woman in Gunner’s life, she wouldn’t be very happy about him spending New Year’s Eve by himself.
And why was she even thinking about this? Tessa chided herself. She had promised herself that she wouldn’t get bogged down in heavy thoughts, not about herself, not about him, not about anything.
As they proceeded down the street, it became less difficult for her to remain distracted. “This is wonderful!” she exclaimed after a moment.
Gunner finally grinned. “Yeah. It’s definitely unique.”
A tall, skinny man on stilts was coming up the middle of the street toward them. He was draped in some glittery, silver material and it trailed along behind him. Children raced after him and pretended to try to step on it, giggling. He was strumming a banjo, and every once in a while he turned and shook it at them menacingly, which only elicited more giggles.
Tessa had to step out of the way quickly to let a short, fat man pass them. He was dressed in a diaper, nothing else. He had a bottie of Scotch in one hand and didn’t seem to feel the cold. She turned aroun
d to walk backward for a moment, watching him.
A moment later a younger man with a heavy beard stopped them. He greeted Gunner and pointed to the thermos that Tessa carried.
“Is that Tonie’s punch?”
“Yes,” she answered, surprised. “It is.”
He grabbed it from her and swigged.
“I believe I’m supposed to tell you that if you’d like more, you’re supposed to get your...ah, butt to her house,” she explained.
The man grinned. “That’s the direction I’m headed in right now.” He gave the thermos back to her. Tessa wiped the mouth on her sleeve and took a mouthful herself.
“Where’d you get that?” Gunner demanded.
“Your mother gave it to me when we were leaving.”
He decided he’d better keep an eye on it. Though it might be amusing to see what happened if she got...what had she called it? Tipsy. But not tonight, he thought. Definitely not tonight. Not with the damn bathtub still fresh in his mind. He had a promise to keep. I can handle this not-quite-personal business just fine. Sure he could. As long as she didn’t get drunk and start wriggling and breathing.
“Come on,” he said suddenly. “Let’s stop in here.”
He swerved up the nearest walkway. Tessa finally understood what he’d said earlier about the doors opening. This one was agape, too. Gunner once again went through the mandatory handshaking, hugging and kissing with everyone on the porch. Tessa killed the time with the thermos.
They went into another kitchen, and someone gave Gunner a can of beer.
“Hey, is that Tonie’s punch?” someone called out to her.
“Yes, and you’re supposed to go to her house if you want more of it.” She handed the thermos over again to the man who had asked about it.
Someone was playing the harmonica outside the open back door. After a while, they left that way. Gunner danced with a little girl in the alley for a moment. Tessa kept her eyes carefully averted. She was not going to notice the way he moved. She stared up the street for a moment, then she slid her eyes his way. He had a natural rhythm even when he was clowning around.
They made their way up to a cross street, stopping again in the next open doorway. Someone grabbed Tessa and tried to dance with her when they made it into yet another kitchen.
“I can’t!” she gasped. “I don’t know how to do that.”
“So I’ll teach you.” The man smiled at her. He was tall and good-looking, blond, with a glass full of partially melted ice in his hand.
Before Tessa could respond, the man slung an arm over her shoulder and dragged her closer.
“She’s with me,” Gunner growled from behind them. He took her other elbow and steered her unceremoniously outside again.
“Gunner, that was rude!” she cried.
“Was it?” he asked tersely.
“Why did you do that? I was going to learn to dance.”
Yeah, Gunner thought, why?
“He’s only interested in one thing—and it’s not dancing,” he muttered after a moment.
“The guy I was going to dance with?” She saw that nerve start ticking at his jaw again.
“Yeah, the guy you were dancing with. His name’s Ben Flannagan. Anything in a skirt,” he muttered angrily.
It occurred to her that given Gunner’s reputation, that was a little like the pot calling the teakettle black. “I’m wearing jeans,” she informed him reasonably.
“Anything that moves then.” He corrected himself. “Anything at all. He’s not picky.”
“Thanks for the compliment.” Tessa sighed. “Gunner, I really can take care of myself.”
Yeah, he thought, she probably could. She’d taken care of herself just fine with him so far, hadn’t she? Until she had wriggled.
He knew in that moment that she hadn’t known she was wriggling last night. She’d done it so damn innocently, so naturally, so sweetly. Which only made it more potent, more arousing, more devastating than with a woman who was practiced in the art of seduction. Sensation—maybe even an urge or two—had touched her, and she’d reacted to it simply and unconsciously.
He wondered if it would have happened with any man who was laying on top of her in there, and wished he could get the whole damn incident out of his mind.
Tessa let out another gasp. He looked up to see that a whole string band was coming up the street toward them now. Tessa laughed and stopped to watch them pass.
“They’re warming up for the morning parade,” Gunner explained, stopping as well. “They’ll go at it all night. I’ve always wondered why they don’t fall flat on their faces on New Year’s Day.”
He watched her rapt expression, her fascination and wonder, as her eyes followed the band. Something shifted inside him. Something warm. Something good. Something new.
He’d never seen New Year’s Eve in quite this way before.
She laughed. “Come on, Gunner.” She grabbed his hand suddenly.
“What?” He pulled back out of sheer wariness.
“Let’s dance.” She pointed. Fifty or so people trailed along behind the string band now, doing a rowdy approximation of the Mummer’s Strut.
“You want to dance? For God’s sake, Tess, five minutes ago you were saying you couldn’t.”
“That was with him,” she said simply.
He almost choked. Then his heart shifted again.
He followed her into the crowd. He didn’t hear the people laughing, singing, calling out. For a single, strange moment, there was only her voice. Everything else seemed to fade, leaving only the clear ring of Tessa Hadley-Bryant’s laughter, her eyes lit brightly, her grin one of pure pleasure. Too damn much beer, he thought. Time to switch back to coffee.
“Like this,” he called out to her. He pumped his arms up and down. She imitated him and laughed again, then she added an impromptu, twirling step all her own.
“Watch out, Princess.” He laughed with her. “They’ll have you recruited by dawn.”
Someone bumped into her. She spun around again, startled.
“Hey, John,” the man said. “Is that your mom’s punch?”
Tessa clutched the thermos to her chest. “Yes. And just take your butt to her house if you want some. This is mine.”
Gunner’s jaw dropped. And then he understood.
“Let me see that,” he growled.
She tried to hold it away from him. He snagged it anyway. It was empty. “Oh, hell, Tess.”
“I hardly got any,” she complained. “They went and drank it all up on me.”
“They did, huh?”
“Yes.” She looked around vacantly. “Where’s your house?” She laughed again. “I want to take my butt back there and get some more for myself.”
Gunner closed his eyes and reminded himself that he was a man of his word. She was a charming drunk.
“This way,” he said, taking her arm carefully, just so, turning her and pointing.
“Thank you, Gunner.”
“You’re welcome.”
“I lost my bearings.”
“No doubt.” What the hell did Mom put in that stuff? He tried to remember. Tia Maria, he thought. Amaretto. Bourbon? God, was there bourbon in there, too?
“This is the best thing that ever happened to me,” Tessa breathed, her gaze moving avidly again, trying to take in everything at once.
He slanted one eye in her direction. She really was something else.
They reached his parents’ house again. He hoped like hell that his mother’s punch was gone by now. He glanced at his watch. It was after eleven.
Tessa laughed at something again, her laughter musical, and he had a change of heart. He hoped there was some punch left. He thought maybe he could stand a good shot of it himself.
Chapter 12
Gunner kept one unobtrusive eye on Tessa as she sat on the floor, her back against the wall, smiling bemusedly. All the kitchen chairs were taken. After a moment, a man in a hot pink suit and a polkadot tie came to squeeze int
o the space beside her.
Minkie Perez seemed thrilled to make her acquaintance, and Gunner decided immediately that it was going to be a short-lived relationship. Minkie was as slick as they came, Gunner thought irritably. The man could sell sand in the desert. He settled for used cars, for appearances’ sake, anyway. Gunner knew he also dabbled in fencing stolen goods. Gunner managed to justify ignoring that by occasionally using the man as an informant. It was damn hard to bust someone you’d grown up with. He brought Minkie in mostly when he needed information that could only be found on the uglier side of the street.
Gunner looked at his watch. It was after eleven-thirty.
“Left field is getting crowded,” Angela said from beside him.
Gunner looked at her sharply. “What?”
“You told me I was way out in left field when I mentioned on Saturday that there was something going on between you two,” she reminded him, her gaze moving between him and Tessa. “Minkie must believe you, though. Brave man.”
Gunner made a sound that could only be called a growl.
Angela was unable to stop a grin, but it faded fast into worry. “You haven’t taken your eyes off the lady all night.”
“I’m worried about her.”
Both Angela’s brows went up at that. “We’re not cannibals, John.”
“I don’t mean that,” Gunner snapped. “I just realized earlier today that this is the anniversary of the night her husband was shot. You remember reading all that in the papers last year?”
“Oh,” Angela answered. “Oh.”
“Yeah,” Gunner muttered. “Oh.”
“Well, that still doesn’t explain why she’s scarcely taken her eyes off you.”
His heart did something sudden and strange. It moved in a way he’d never quite experienced before.
“You’re wrong,” he answered tersely.
“Nope.”
“Drop it, Angie.”
“I just don’t want to see you hurt. She’s got problems and she comes from a different world. She’ll break your heart.”